


Confrontations

by gotellthebees



Category: A Discovery of Witches (TV), All Souls Trilogy - Deborah Harkness
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-28
Updated: 2021-01-28
Packaged: 2021-03-14 03:28:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,311
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29039406
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gotellthebees/pseuds/gotellthebees
Summary: Matthew & Diana are back from 1590 and Sarah notices a certain scar that Diana has acquired in the time since she last saw her.  Spoilers for Shadow of the Night & Season 2
Relationships: Diana Bishop & Sarah Bishop, Diana Bishop/Matthew Clairmont
Comments: 10
Kudos: 70





	Confrontations

**Author's Note:**

> Long-time lurker, first-time poster so please be kind. This is something I've had saved for a while and I finally decided to take the plunge. No beta, so any errors are my own. Let me know what you think :)

I casually shrugged out of my loose sweatshirt as I stood in front of the mirror in my bedroom. It was so good to wear something comfortable and baggy after months of corsets, and with the babies coming, anything minutely snug felt especially cumbersome. My eyes gradually drifted to the raised bite mark on my chest, right above my heart. The edges of the wound were raw and torn; you could tell from looking at it that it would never fully heal, Matthew’s venom had made sure of that. Yet, it still brought me this intense sense of comfort; it was a reminder of my belonging to Matthew and of him belonging to me. I trailed the tip of my index finger over the mark lightly. It twinged a bit, but at the same time a shiver of pleasure coursed through my body. Memories of that most intimate moment in my life flooded my mind; in that moment only a few weeks ago when Matthew finally drank from my heart vein I knew that we had finally become one. My blood had coursed through his body nourishing him and my memories and thoughts of love reverberated through his mind as if they were his own. I could never resent him that moment of perfect togetherness.

I was jolted out of my reverie and spun around as Sarah threw open the door.

“Diana, you wouldn’t believe what I saw in this spell book, I don’t know how I never saw this before. We could actually bewitch…” her voice fell mute as her gaze settled on where my fingers rested over my heart.

Her eyes made contact with mine and suddenly I could see the fire raging in her irises. The anger in her eyes alight with a red blaze that matched the fury of the curls that adorned her head. She turned determinedly towards the door.

“Sarah, wait,” I said, my hand reaching out towards her, but she had already flown down the stairs in a fury. “Damn it,” I muttered as I shrugged my sweatshirt back on, hiding the evidence of the intimacy Matthew and I had shared from plain sight, and then rushed down the stairs after her.

\--------------

Matthew was sitting in the kitchen, bent over the page of Ashmole 782 that we had in our possession. The furrow in his brow indicated his intense concentration and his obliviousness to what was coming. Sarah flew in with a fury.

“How dare you,” she exclaimed before slapping him across the face. Confusion and anger flashed through Matthew’s eyes and a low growl slipped out of his throat as he quickly stood up in response, knocking the chair backwards. He was now leaning over her, looking every bit a vampire but Sarah wasn’t intimidated. She stared back at him with an anger I hadn’t seen since she talked about revenge against Knox for what happened to Emily. I immediately ran over to intervene, hand on Matthew’s chest holding him back.

“I trusted you!” she shrieked. “I trusted you would never harm her. Emily swore to me you were her Shadow Prince, the one cloaked in darkness but with the power to protect her from harm. But now here I find that you’ve fed off her, used her. Have you wiped her memory too? Is that why she doesn’t seem bothered by it? I always knew you would lose control with her, I warned Diana of it from the very beginning”.

“Sarah, stop it!” I cried, cutting her off. Matthew’s face had contorted in an odd display of both anger and self-loathing. He knew what she was referring too, and it was bringing up his own fears and reservations that he’d expressed to me at the time. I knew I had nothing to fear from him, yet this reawakened his own personal nightmare that his love for me would be my destruction. 

“I wanted Matthew to do it, Sarah. I asked him to. I was never in any danger. He didn’t harm me,” I explained, lowering my voice in an effort to diffuse the palpable tension in the room. Her eyes flashed between Matthew and I in a panicked look of confusion and Matthew let out a long shaky breath as he sank back down into his seat at the table with his head pressed into the palms of his hands.

“You…you wanted him to?” Sarah stuttered in confusion, clearly taken aback by my response and Matthew’s newfound air of resignation. “Diana, he could have killed you. I saw him in the barn that day after Juliette attacked. If Marcus and Miriam hadn’t been there to pull you away from him, he would have killed you. I watched as the color left your face and the light left your eyes. How could you want that?”

I opened my mouth to speak, but Matthew had found his voice. “Sarah, I think you should take a seat,” he said as he gestured towards the chair at the table to his left. He reached out to grab my hand in his and he gave me a brief quirk of a smile as he guided me around to sit on the other side. 

Sarah stood there for a moment appraising us before hesitantly taking a seat of her own. We sat in silence for a moment before Matthew’s voice broke the unbearable tension.

“Sarah, what I think you are referring to is the scar on Diana’s chest,” he looked at her dead-on, waiting for a sign that he would be contradicted. He sighed, “and yes, that is the site where I drink from her”.

“Drink!” she exclaimed. “Present-tense? This wasn’t a one-time thing? How could you use her like this Matthew? I thought you loved her?”

“Sarah, I do love her,” he said placating as he reached out to grasp my hand in his. “If anything this is a sign of how much I love her rather than a testament against my affection”.

“Matthew, you could kill her,” Sarah said seriously. “I’ve seen the hunger for blood in your eyes. One day it will get the better of you, and Diana will be the casualty”. 

“Sarah, I know that. I…I…” Matthew stammered as he struggled to explain. How could he when the truth was that he had those same doubts?  
“I resisted for a long time, Sarah. I fear I am a danger to her myself. What you don’t understand is that this type of feeding is not motivated by hunger. It’s…it’s not my craving for her taking over when I take her blood. What you have to understand is part of the ritual when vampires mate is for them to drink each other’s blood. It’s not an experience driven by an urgency to kill, it’s more of desire…it’s…it’s intimate.” Matthew’s face had the barest hint of a flush. There were times where I forgot how old he was and that even the slightest reference to the pleasure we enjoyed in each other’s arms could send his old-fashioned sensibilities whirring.

“Sarah,” I said, trying my best to help her understand. “Matthew doesn’t drink from me very often and if he does, he doesn’t do it for very long. He’s very restrained about it. He refrains from doing it very often out of fear that it will make me grow weak, in fact I’m the one who has to push for it more often than not”.

“Push for it!” she scoffed. “See this is what I don’t understand Diana, what could you possibly get out of it besides pain? I saw what blood loss did to you before. And Matthew, how can you be sure that your lust for her blood won’t take over. How is this any different?”

Matthew began to explain. “Sarah, your earlier accusation that I had wiped her memory is incorrect on a number of levels, but it does get at the general point I want to convey which is that when vampires drink the blood of their prey, they can read their thoughts and memories. You have only heard of this as being useful as a means of exploitation, but between mates it can be used as a way to express…passion…I…I’m sure you can see why it may be desirable to hear the thoughts of your lover whilst they are in the throes of passion.” That was it, Matthew was now beet red in the face. It was almost amusing, if not for the seriousness of Sarah’s concern.

“Ah…ah…ah, okay, okay, I get it”, Sarah was waving her hands in front of her face to get Matthew to stop. Her eyes scrunched closed as if she was now just trying to block out that particular image. She opened them and made eye contact with me. “So it’s about sex then”.

I glanced at Matthew, my face now finally flushing for the first time. “Ah...uhhm...yes, I suppose it is”. This was not the kind of conversation I ever wanted to be having with my aunt.

“And you enjoy this?” she asked concernedly.

“It makes me feel close to Matthew. To know he can feel what I feel, my love for him, I find that experience very desirable. The pleasure of the experience more than outweighs the slight amount of pain. And I can reciprocate by giving Matthew a witches’ kiss. It’s just a way we can be completely open and honest with each other and…free, I suppose.” My gaze turned to Matthew, I had never really given voice to how the experience felt before and I smiled at the rush of love I felt for this man.

“And you’re being safe about it?” she asked as she eyed Matthew warily.

This was beginning to feel similar to the contraception talk she’d given me when I turned sixteen. However, I knew that wasn’t what she meant; it was already too late on that front. My hand went to rest on the slight curve of my belly.

Matthew responded. “Sarah, I am ever so careful with her. If I have even the slightest notion that I am not 100% in control I never agree to it. And now with Diana being pregnant I refuse to drink from her out of fear it may tax her and the babies. Even still, as Diana said, I only allow myself a minute tops. She’s safe with me, and she’s sworn to me that if I ever lose control she wouldn’t hesitate to use her magic to restrain me. That’s the only reason I ever gave in in the first place. Your niece really is quite powerful, you know,” he finished with a smirk of pride on his lips.

Sarah finally seemed to let go of the breath she was holding and relaxed in her chair. “I know she is,” she said and looked at me with a gaze of admiration. “I guess I never really considered the reality of what must go on in interspecies relationships; it never seemed relevant before to even give it a thought what with the covenant,” she gave us both an apologetic glance. “I’m sorry I doubted your care for her Matthew, I shouldn’t have. Emily was always right, of course you would never harm her. I suppose I just feel protective of Diana after Em’s death. She’s all I have left you see,” Sarah looked at Matthew pleading, as if she hoped he would understand that he held all that was left in her world in his hand. 

“That’s not true Sarah, pretty soon you will have these little-ones to love on too,” I smiled, rubbing my belly fondly. “Speaking of which, we wanted to ask you. Our children are going to need a godmother, and seeing as you were the best there ever could be to me, I was hoping you might be willing to give it a go again?”

Sarah looked up at both of us with tears in her eyes, “Of course I’ll be your children’s godmother. Oh my goodness, Diana. I am so very proud of you”. At that point the water works had been brought on at full stream and Sarah was a mess. I got up to go to her and embraced her in a massive hug, pouring all my love for both her and Em into it, for both my aunts who had been like mothers to me. Matthew stood up and rested a hand on the small of my back as Sarah and I parted.

“Well, if you’ll excuse me,” Sarah said, wiping at the tear streams flowing down her face. “I’m just going to go get a tissue and clean myself up a bit if that’s alright?”

“Of course, Sarah,” I said, giving her arm one last squeeze before letting her go. I turned to Matthew and immediately let my head rest on his chest, soaking in the cinnamon and clove scent of him. His arms came up to wrap around me.

“Well, that was certainly not how I imagined us asking your aunt to be our children’s godmother. In fact, I don’t think I ever imagined having to explain any aspect of our sex life to your relatives”.

I snorted in response. “I know, that certainly was something. Honestly, I’m surprised it had never crossed her mind before. You are quite possessive, even for a vampire you know,” I said teasingly.

He smirked while gazing down at me, “Only because I have such a priceless being in my possession”.

I snorted again. “Well if that isn’t the definition of sap, Professor Clairmont, then I don’t know what is”.

“Perhaps,” he said, “but it is rather true”. 

And with that, he pulled me in for a kiss and I couldn’t help but be grateful that he belonged to me as well.


End file.
